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A Second World War dispatch rider who spent two days lying seriously injured and unconscious in a ditch after being blown off his bike during a German bombardment has been given France's highest honour - the Legion d' Honneur.

Chaddesden's Arthur Beards - who is 96 - was excited to receive a letter earlier this month to confirm that he has been appointed to the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre nationale de la Legion d'Honneur for his part in the campaign to liberate France following the D-Day landings in 1944.

The French government announced in 2014 that it would give the medals to all surviving British veterans of the landings.

Mr Beards still bears the scars from his severe leg injuries, which took a couple of years to mend, and ended his short time spent in the theatre of war.

Born in West Bromwich in the West Midlands and with five siblings, Mr Beards was 18 when he was conscripted into the Army and posted to 14 AOD ( Advanced Ordnance Depot) near Donnington in Shropshire - after three months initial training in Blackpool.

He said: "In Blackpool, we had daily runs to Lytham St Anne's and 10-mile marches to the rifle range.

"By the time I went to 14 AOD, there were about 100 of us in the charge of Major Baker, a former Woolworths manager."

Arthur Beards in uniform (Image: Stuart Wilde Photography)

Mr Beards had been a lorry driver before he joined up and so he was chosen to go on a drivers' course in Sheffield.

From there he volunteered to train as a dispatch rider and recalled: "During training, I remember being dropped off a lorry in the middle of nowhere with my bike, a map and a map reference and being told to find my way back to base, which was no problem."

Mr Beards became Major Barker's driver when the AOD moved to Derby, where he was based in barracks in Siddals Road, and he remembers taking him to a conference at the Chilwell barracks on one occasion and on another they travelled to the Woolwich Arsenal, which was being readied for stocking up supplies for the French landings.

He confesses that he used to borrow the major's car to go out for the night in Derby and it was during one of these trips in 1943 that met his future wife, Beryl, at a dance at the Central Hall. They married in 1945 after Mr Beards had sufficiently recovered from his war wounds.

The first action that Mr Beards saw in June 1944 started when he embarked from Tilbury docks in Essex. He was on board a landing craft, which had a small galley and says he was quite relaxed about finally getting involved in war action.

He said: "I told one of the crew that I was hungry. Around me quite a few people were throwing up but I was hungry.

"The crew member asked me what size pumps I took. I told him I was a size 10 and he said he was too. He then suggested that I give him my pumps in return for him cooking me sausage and chips, which he did.

"So there we were sailing into the unknown and I was eating sausage and chips.

"After I had eaten, I gave him my pumps and he said I could be put on a charge for what I had done. But I said what will anyone do about it- send me back?

Mr Beards with his medal and badge (Image: Stuart Wilde Photography)

"He replied that it probably wouldn't matter anyway because I probably wouldn't be around long enough to wear them!"

Within an hour, Mr Beards found himself on Juno beach in Normandy trying to unload lorries containing supplies the troops would need to sustain them and to start building supply lines - and he realised he was now involved in war.

He said: "Trying to get them and tractors up the beach was a nightmare as they kept getting stuck. All around us there was noise and balls of flames from planes being hit as they flew overhead. We had to waterproof the lorries to stop them from taking on water.

"At times, the lorries were strafed by machine-gun fire and we had to quickly scramble underneath them."

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The 14 AOD was never intended to be among the first ordnance groups to go ashore but the vessel carrying the recce party of 17 AOD was torpedoed and most of the party was lost.

The recce party of 14 AOD landed on June 28, and established the main rear maintenance area (RMA) at Audrieu. The area was drained and 200 steel framed huts were erected.

It was after this that Mr Beard's training as a dispatch driver kicked in and he found himself riding to the front line on a daily basis to deliver messages between Caen, Rouen and Amiens as the line advanced.

Map showing the proximity of Caen, Rouen and Amiens in Normandy which Private Beards regularly rode his motorcycle between in WWII (Image: Google Maps)

Mr Beards said there were two riders and each of them would be travelling anywhere between 45 and 75 miles on the journeys.

He said: "I remember a close miss between Rouen and Amiens when a tank was hit by a shell as I was approaching it. I saw the squaddie inside lift the turret opening and appear to try to get out and flop over on the top but I couldn't stop because of the shell fire and also I needed to get the message through.

"I hope he was ok and just winded but when I came back later that evening he was still there in the same place and I knew he was dead.

"It was nerve-wracking riding the front line because occasionally French collaborators would appear and try to ram me off the road and there was always the danger of being hit directly by a shell or bullet or by shrapnel."

The routine was broken on one occasion after Mr Beard's brother, John, turned up out of the blue. John was on his way to Bayeux with his unit when he realised he was near to his brother's base. The pair were briefly reunited with "hugging" and "back slaps" before they had to move on.

Helping those who serve

Mr Beards said: "I was very surprised to see him get out of a lorry and come over to me. He was with the engineers and survived the war fortunately."

For about another four weeks Mr Beards carried on his work as a dispatch rider, when suddenly his war came to an abrupt end on the road to Amiens.

He said: "I don't really know what happened. One minute I was on my motorcycle and the next I was waking up in hospital.

"I remember seeing two identical nurses standing at the foot of my bed and asked if they were twins - and it was then people realised I had double vision - something that I still have more than 70 years later.

"Apparently, a passing unit had spotted me in the ditch and I was taken to the hospital and it seems I was unconscious for about five days and in pretty poor shape."

Mr Beards was treated at the old Derby City Hospital (Image: Derby Telegraph)

There began a period of nursing, operations and grafts that went on for more than two years. He is happy to show people the aftermath of his wounds which reveal where the pin was put into his shattered leg, using bone from his other leg and his hip.

Mr Beards found himself on board another boat, this time bound for Liverpool and Alder Hey hospital where military personnel were treated during the Second World War, although it is now a children's hospital.

He stayed there for quite some time but was eventually sent to Derby City General Hospital, now the Royal Derby Hospital and then for convalescence at Stourbridge, Ashbourne and Etwall.

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He recalls he was eventually operated on by surgeon Mr Ford, who saved his leg but he was left with one leg slightly shorter than the other.

Mr Beards and his wife moved into a house in Lexington Road, Chaddesden, after they were married and they had two daughters. Mr Beards has four grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

For some years after the war, Mr Beards, who had been with the Home Guard when he was called up, occasionally went to Royal British Legion meetings but no longer feels the need to be involved in acts of Remembrance.

But he said: "I am proud of myself and what I achieved and I know that without so many sacrifices by so many people in both world wars, we could be living in a very different world now."